INSPIRATION:Nowadays, in most of the larger areas of the workplace or home environment, such as The library, the gymnasium, the museum, the concert hall, living room and so on, we often use plenty of switches controlling the lightings. However, due to the numbers of switch control increased, users may get confused on those different non-clearly defined switch devices. Normally, in order to solve this, the traditional way is to attach different stickers on top of the switches to help users identify respective lightings, but this method is in-aesthetic and sticker also easily fall off.

UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION:the most innovative point of this switch design is to enable our users clearly identify each light is controlled by which different witches. Based on the traditional switch design standard, we figure out a small slot above the switch, which can place light label. The installation is simple and practical, we just need to insert the different printed label into the different slots. There is a small hole in the notch of the label plate, users can use smaller tools to eject the label paper.

OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION:Based on the traditional switch design standard, we figure out a small slot above the switch, which can place light label. The installation is simple and practical, we just need to insert the different printed label into the different slots. There is a small hole in the notch of the label plate, users can use smaller tools to eject the label paper.

PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION:The project started in May in Shenzhen 2016 and finished in August 2017 in Shenzhen

FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY:Lighting Products and Lighting Projects Design

PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY:This product is based on modular design, and fully observed the rule of design for environment.The product is made up of fire-proof ABS plastic and manufactured by injection moulding,improvement only involves upgrading in structural design, not the internal electronic technology.So this product doesn’t need to invest high cost of intelligent technology. The engineers only need to design a small flute. With very good cost of development and easy way of maintenance.

SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES:86.0mm*86.0mm*30.0mm

TAGS:Switch, label, slot, label plate, modular design, green design

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:1. Type of Research: Development Research.
2. Research Objectives: The purpose is to enable every user clearly identify each light is controlled by which different witches.
3. Methodology: Observation and interview.
4. Data Collection and Research Tools Used: Data statistics and calculation through interview results, and we finally get the user's pain points through those data. The tools included Phone interview, live interview and so on.
5. Participants or Experiments: The respondents involve 53 enterprises, 21 families, and the total user interviews covered 2431 people. The sales channels including online platforms like Jingdong, Tmall, Amazon, and offline platforms also, like ShunDan, Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Gome, Suning Electric and so on. The overall research lasted 49 days, and 22 people involved in the pre-investigation and project evaluation.
6. Results: according to the survey, 92.8% users think the current switch doesn’t bring better user experience, users may get confused on those different non-clearly defined switch devices;86.2% users think the intelligent switch is complicated to use app to control the light, a simple turning on/off action why should we consume 30 seconds.
7. Insights and Impacts: Based on the above problems, we redesigned the product. Comparing with those similar products, the most innovative point of this switch design is to enable our users clearly identify each light is controlled by which different witches. This design is very simple to materialize and at a very low cost advantage. Based on the traditional switch design standard, we figure out a small slot above the switch, which can place light label. The installation is simple and practical, we just need to insert the different printed label into the different slots. There is a small hole in the notch of the label plate, users can use smaller tools to eject the label paper. That is quite easy for users to change label, and user experience be improved in a lifestyle way.
8. Effect of the Research in Real-Life Phenomena: From business aspects, this product has large differences comparing to the rest similar products. The strong point of this design is the label pane, hence make it become more popular product. This product has very clear target group, the distributors can use one-to-one marketing to cooperate with larger offices, such as commercial office building, library, gymnasium, museum, the concert hall, big enterprise, etc, and can also cooperate with property companies; From society aspects, this product is based on modular design, and fully observed the rule of design for environment. From the user aspects, if the switch pane is broken, users only need to change the internal component, and the front of the pane can be reused. If the label pane is lost or broken, users no need throw away the whole product, only need to apply for new accessories of labels.

CHALLENGE: The most challenging part in designing this product is the comprehensive pre-design survey, which covers a wide range, involves plenty of human resources and which of course, quite time-consuming. This research we can say had extended the ranges of present wall-switch markets, including six parts, product segmentation, channel distribution, product pricing, user interview, product installation and after-sales maintenance.

· This project is currently confidential as results have not been announced yet. Images and further details of the project is not available for public yet, please check back later. If you are the owner of this design, please login to view the images.

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